Ridecamp: [RC] Blanketing, winter weather, and bathing horses

I'm a little late on this thread but thought I'd throw in my $.02 --
realizing, of course, that our winter weather is pretty unique and these
methods may or may not work for anyone else. <g>

I live on the west side of the Cascade mountains in Washington state.
It's a very beautiful area with lots of greenery and trees...but it
takes quite a bit of rain to make it that way.  Winter, where we live,
is pretty much a series of 3-day weather patterns...nice day, drizzly
day, rainy day, then repeat, with the temps mostly between 35 and 50.
We ride in the rain all of time...lots of polarfleece and goretex with
neoprene kayaking gloves (from REI.)  Where we usually ride is a great
training area with lots of trail in the trees and gravel roads.  Some of
the trails get a pretty mucky in the rain so we skip those during the
winter season but those still usable (and there are quite a lot) are
sheltered so the rain coming down on us is minimized...and we rarely
have any lightning.  This area, of about 30k acres, is nearly empty on
rainy days except for the endurance riders (who will ride in any
weather!! <g>)  It's quite impressive to have this amount of land to
ourselves and a whole parking lot with (maybe) one other rig!

I blanket my horses with a lightweight, waterproof blankets -- they just
need protection from the rain and not extra insulation -- just got them
back from the blanket service where they get cleaned, repaired, and
rewaterproofed for about $25 each.  If I didn't blanket the horses, they
would be constantly wet and extremely muddy...not a good thing to put a
saddle on.  We pull off their blankets and they're clean and dry. <vbg>
Some also have a tendency to get cold in the rain since they are fairly
thin skinned, thin coated Arabs...my husband's QH has never had a
blanket on but doesn't roll much and has a thick coat of winter hair so
hasn't really needed one (however, my husband now wants equal treatment
for Sherry so she gets a blanket this year anyway, by request. <g>)  A
couple of the horses who have a very good winter coat get blanketed
anyway since they're schooling horses and need to be dry (so the
students can put the saddles on dry backs.)  

All of the horses in my barn come in for the night so they have a chance
to dry off every night (and we've never had scratches in 20
years...knock on wood.)  They all have attached paddocks on their stalls
so could go outside if they wanted to...most prefer to stand in the
stall, out of the rain, and just stick their heads out. The stalls are
big (12x16) and have a cement floor with mats and shavings on the
mats...and good food. <g>  

When we go riding, we take 5-gal. buckets of hot water with us in the
truck.  After the ride we scrub off the mud and sweat marks with the hot
water (then just *warm* but very pleasant.) We clean the area around and
under the saddle, their belly, and their legs (which are usually very
muddy.)  Once they've been squeegied as much as possible, we put on
polarfleece blankets and then haul them home.  They're fairly dry when
we get home so we switch them to their Jammies (to keep their shoulders
from getting rubbed hairless by the blankets) and their waterproof
blankets.

Our tack is either biothane or neoprene (and we can just dunk them in a
bucket also) and the saddle seat has sheepskin on it.  We have
waterproof (human) leg gaiters attached to the cantle that hold extra
dry gloves, hat, and cover-up should we need them.  The horses have rump
rugs on also if it's *cold* and raining.  The riders usually have on
capilene, polarfleece, and goretex (in that order), including goretex
pants if needed.  As with the horses, our comfort is directly related to
keeping ourselves dry. [duh]  We have visors on the helmets that help
keep the rain off of our faces...and polarfleece hoods that we can put
on over the helmets besides polarfleece skull caps under the helmets.

Some of our best rides have been when it has been lightly raining!

Sue (one of the crazy endurance riders who will ride in anything!)



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